Sunny skies returned to Iowa on Friday with a moderate 64-mile ride to Tipton. We passed through the scenic Coralville Lake area and arrived in Solon eight miles later. Matt stopped downtown for a Bloody Mary while I ordered up an orange juice. Funny thing, when you order OJ in a bar - people ask you how it is. Inside Smitty's Bar & Grill, I replied "It's pretty good." I wasn't lying. It was good juice. Then those same people went up to the bar and ordered Screwdrivers. Interesting.
Matt and I again rode together to Lisbon, which offered an excellent spread of food and beverage, and then to Mount Vernon, where we found Larry, Darren, Kevin and Greg. Of all the small towns we visited in Iowa, Mount Vernon had to be the prettiest. It's home to Cornell College and featured the largest collection of food vendors we'd seen all week. Even the local cheerleaders were selling stuff. The Methodists sold me pie with not one, but TWO types of berries. A little slice of heaven, served on a paper plate.
In Morley, a town of less than 100 residents, the food was free in the old school gymnasium (donations were encouraged, however). The town reminded me of Stockland, Illinois, where I attended grade school. The Morley high school was long gone but the gymnasium was still standing. Corrugated metal siding made it look like a machine shed, but inside was much like the old high school gym that still stands in Stockland.
Our next stop was Mechanicsville, the unofficial Party Town for Day 6. The place was alive with music and the sense that this was the last on-the-road town where most people would spend quality time partying. Saturday's ride was to be a short hop that many would do with few interruptions, since most RAGBRAI'ers would just want to finish up and get home. So Mechanicsville was it, and the party was already started when Matt and I showed up. The Miller beer garden was serving boiled Louisiana shrimp, complete with scales, tails, eyeballs, and what college roommate Adam Whipple once described as "the shit tract".
After 30 minutes of peeling and eating about 15 shrimp, several Joyriders arrived to join in the fun. We sat next to a guy named Chip, wearing a Florida State University bike jersey, who was loosely affiliated with a guy known by Ron Schechter and Art Lindo. Chip brought over his buddy Stumpy, wearing a Corn Head on top of his bike helmet, and thus began the telling of the Legend of Frank Iowa.
The Legend starts with a guy named Frank something-or-other who did his first RAGBRAI in the 1970's. Frank loved RAGBRAI and the state of Iowa so much that he changed his last name to Iowa. Since then, Frank Iowa has attended every RAGBRAI except the ones when he was in jail. Several years ago, he made arrangements to be picked up at a Walmart by some friends on their way to the RAGBRAI starting town. When his friends arrived, Frank walked out of the store in a blue Walmart smock with his name on it. He had worked there the previous few months to "make some RAGBRAI money." Frank strolled over to the row of new bicycles on display in front of the store, pulled out a key ring, unlocked the security cable and wheeled away a new bike for RAGBRAI. Thus began (or continued, depending on who you ask) the Legend of Frank Iowa.
RAGBRAI is full of colorful characters like Frank Iowa. Every year has "that guy", such as No Seatpost Guy. Seriously, there's a guy who rides the whole dang time with no seat. I know this because I was there when he helped Greg Sierra fix a flat. Without a seatpost, No Seatpost Guy has room to carry a full-sized floor air pump on his bike. I also saw Large Unicycle Guy just about every day (it's the unicycle that's large, the guy is actually rather small). He pedaled a big-wheel unicycle across the state of Iowa. Chiquita Banana Guy was also a crowd favorite. He rode a recumbent bicycle encased in yellow cardboard, which loosely resembled a banana.
We ate and drank for a couple hours in Mechanicsville before heading out to Tipton, the final overnight stay of the week. I found myself riding solo after a few miles, then caught up to Greg Sierra on the edge of town. Our host family, Dr. Mark and Sharon Niles, lived about a mile east of Tipton on a gravel road. Marlene had spread the word that the gravel was loose and unsuitable for road bikes, but Greg and I decided to give it a try. We pushed our bikes 100 yards up a gravel hill and were the first of the Joyriders to arrive.
Dr. Mark is a chiropractor. He owns a very nice house with a very nice shower, and I got first dibs. The rest of Team Joyride had chosen to stop in downtown Tipton and wait for Greg, Marlene and I to drive the RV into town and pick them up. We did just that and decided to grab some food while we were there.
While searching for good eats, I noticed that Dr. Mark has some competition in Tipton. In fact, he has an unusually large number of competitors. No fewer than 4 chiropractors have offices in Tipton, a town of about 3,000 residents. In comparison, the greater Des Moines area has about 125 chiropractors serving 375,000 people, or one doctor for every 3,000 residents. Tipton apparently has a lot of back problems.
In Dr. Mark's office parking lot, the same Louisiana shrimp boilers from Mechanicsville were setting up for the night shift in Tipton, complete with their bright red shrimp mascot drumming up business next to the beer garden. Team Joyride decided to retreat to the doctor's house and get a good night's rest. We needed an early start on Saturday morning to wrap up our ride by about 10:30 a.m. We didn't have access to the inside of the house, but we did have the 3-car garage. My bed was beside the snow blower.
